My Tagline:
300,000 Allied troops better figure out a way off a beach, and quick.

Budget:
$100,000,000

Rotten Tomatos-93% (You can’t put a lot of stock in this, they gave Girls Trip an 87%. DAFUQ??!!)

I was excited about seeing this movie and wish I had done more research on the historical nature of it beforehand; I found myself wanting to Google certain aspects throughout the whole film. There were three other factors that almost completely ruined the movie for me, but they were related to the theater itself:

1. After leaving the snack bar, I realized there was a bald-headed midget taking tickets! I had to get out of line for a few minutes until I could compose myself enough to hand him my ticket stub. Throughout the movie, I found my mind wondering about how I could stuff this guy in an extra-large popcorn tub and take him home.

2. The volume was excruciatingly loud throughout the whole movie. I was tempted to walk out after the first scene; it was that bad! After futile attempts with the surrounding women to scrounge up a couple of tampons to stuff my ears, I settled for two lemon Mike & Ikes from the guy sitting in front of me.

3. There was a woman about seven seats down from me that was constantly getting up to go to the bathroom. Whether she had a bladder the size of a hummingbird or she took a triple dose of diuretics before the movie, I will never know, but six trips was a little excessive. I think 2 trips should be the cutoff, anything more would definitely require an adult diaper. Technically, I suppose you could cheat a third trip if you brought back some nachos or a pretzel or something for everyone you keep disturbing.

PLOT:
This movie is about three perspectives of the evacuation of Dunkirk and is rotated every few minutes of the show. Here is what you got:

1. The guys on the beach—They were sitting ducks while they waited for any sort of seaworthy craft to get them back to England.

2. The guys in the air—They were trying to stop German fighters & bombers and were battling being low on fuel.

3. The civilians—These guys loaded up their private boats with life jackets and embarked on some sort of sailboat regatta across the English Channel, picking up any floating Allied troop they came across.

Actors:
I didn’t have a problem with any of the actors in this film. The script is not really filled with dialogue so there is not a lot of opportunities for someone to screw it up. Here are a few actors you will recognize from other movies:

Mark Rylance-Bridge of Spies

Kenneth Branagh-Valkyrie

Cillian Murphy-The Dark Knight

Tom Hardy-The Dark Knight

Scenes:
These guys on the beach had it bad! Not only were they surrounded by a German Army that just waltzed across France but they had to sit idly by while the German Airforce strafed and pounded bombs on top of them on the beach. When they were lucky enough to get on a boat they had to worry about it getting sunk by that same air force, not to mention German U-boats lurking off the coast; as if floating in an oil slick wasn’t bad enough. The only thing they had going in their favor was the lack of a shark feeding frenzy when these boats were going down faster than an intern on Bill Clinton.

This part may be a spoiler but in the back of your mind you have to know that people are going to die in this movie. Why the kid? I realize that the guy they picked up was shell-shocked, but I would have kicked his ass off the boat as soon as he knocked the cup of coffee out of my hand! It has always been my experience that when you save someone’s life, they are usually appreciative.

I am not an expert on the British Spitfire but I have a hard time believing that this thing had a higher kill ratio when it was out of gas and gliding for 5-minutes up and down the beach of Dunkirk! WTF??!!

SUMMARY:
This movie was not bad but I don’t think it will go down as great either. I think it was spot on from a historical perspective and I like the way it portrayed civilians in England being behind their war effort; something you rarely see today.

The effects, although deafening at times, were good and seemed realistic. The background music could have been toned down as it made what little conversation there was hard to hear and understand.

In screenwriting, there is a general rule of thumb: ‘Arrive late and leave early.’ In this film we arrive late and leave on time; I would have liked to see more buildup to the troops getting to the beach at the beginning of the movie. A quick scene with military commanders laying out a plan would have gone a long way in making the film more coherent.

Despite the bad press this movie received for not having any black actors, it could not be more historically correct! I think there have been plenty of movies portraying the important contributions of blacks in our numerous war efforts not to mention this movie was not about the United States. Most directors would have cast Will Smith to go behind enemy lines, steal a Messerschmitt Me 109, and single handedly demolish the entire German Luftwaffe while everyone was playing beach volleyball, listening to rap music and pimping out military Jeeps. Add a bunch of jive bullshit to this and you would have the recipe to a modern-day blockbuster, I suppose!

No black actors you say? I beg to differ, wait until you see the troops after they get rescued from the oil slicks; I counted at least fifty.

Normally I do not go into deep thought after a movie; for me they are for entertainment purposes only. However, I could not help to think how the world would be shaped if the US would have started the Lend-Lease Act earlier or perhaps it’s Declaration of War against Germany.